101 Ways to Hide a Body
by Fawnfire
Summary: Charlie Parker—a young and incredibly successful detective—is uprooted from her hometown in Florida and planted in New York City after a particularly gruesome case. She thought she left it all behind, but what happens when the murderer she helped escaped shows up looking for retribution?
1. Chapter 1

Mac raised his camera and took another picture from where he was crouched beside the victim. Footsteps sounded from the front of the warehouse, but Mac didn't have to turn and look to know it was Flack coming to join him.

"Male, in his mid-twenties," Mac informed the detective. "Dead for at least three hours. What did the witness say?"

"Says he doesn't know him, never seen him before in his life," Flack said. "Heard something that might have been a gunshot, then he noticed the body through one of those windows."

Mac stood and moved to the windows Flack had nodded at. "What do you think of the witness?"

"I'd put him down as suspect number one," a new voice said. The woman had a badge at her waist and a camera bag thrown over one shoulder. Her clothing was plain, jeans and a worn navy trench coat.

"Charlotte," Mac said. "I'd like you to meet Detective Don Flack."

"Call me Charlie." She smiled at Flack and shook his hand when he offered it. Flack watched her crouch next to the body where Mac had been a moment before. She pulled a pair of gloves out of the camera bag and began putting them on.

"What makes you think he's a suspect?" Flack asked.

"I heard you questioning him. He said he was jogging, but he isn't dressed for it. He has on sweats, but isn't wearing tennis shoes or have a Walkman or Ipod. Who jogs without music? And more importantly, who the hell hears what they think is a gunshot and doesn't run away from it?" Charlie plucked at the fabric of the shirt around the wound in the victim's chest. "I mean, besides us."

Flack shot Mac a look over Charlie's head, his eyebrows raised. "Not bad," the detective said. "I take it this isn't your first rodeo?"

"Two years on the job down in Florida," Charlie said. She was examining the victim's hands, lifting them and turning them over carefully. "What about you guys?"

"I've been a detective for six years," Flack said. "Mac's been doing this so long he's pretty much part of the crime lab's furniture."

Charlie chuckled. "That's good to know. I'll try not to bang my shin on him."

"I'd appreciate that." Mac, who was still staring at the window panes, turned back to Flack and Charlie. "I think you might be on to something about the witness. These windows are so caked with dust you can hardly see out, there's no way he looked in and saw the body. See what you can find out about the witness, Flack, and tell him not to leave town."

"Already did," Flack said. "I also told him we need a DNA sample and the clothes he's wearing."

Charlie glanced up from what she was doing in time to see Mac shoot Flack a look of surprise.

Flack only shrugged and smiled. "It's not my first rodeo either."

* * *

**This story is set during season 2, just after Lindsay joins the team. **

**Please drop me a review and let me know how you like it so far. I welcome all questions, comments, and true stories of adventure!**


	2. Chapter 2

Flack left them to work the scene while he finished canvassing the area. "I'll process this side," Charlie said to Mac before moving off to the far end of the warehouse. For a moment Mac just watched her, noting her measured steps and the way she was examining the floor. Charlie went about her work with a practiced ease, as if processing were second nature. Satisfied with the new girl, Mac turned his attention back to the body in front of him.

He checked the pockets first, then examined the victim from head to toe, looking for defensive wounds and trace. He took a swab of white powder off the hemline of the shirt and pulled a drug test from his kit. There were no obvious needle marks on the victim's arms or legs, but the substance was suspect.

"Our victim may have been involved in drugs," Mac said while he used an eyedropper to dampen the swab. It turned a sickly blue almost instantly. "I found cocaine on his clothes, but he doesn't appear to be a user."

"Could have been a drug deal gone wrong," Charlie said. "I found a hundred dollar bill in the corner over here."

"Just one?"

"Just one."

"Maybe our vic has been using this place to stage deals, and the bill was left over from an exchange. I'll have Flack find out how long this warehouse has been vacant."

Charlie nodded, then snapped two more photos of the bill before she bagged it. It only took her another fifteen minutes to work her way through the rest of the warehouse. When she was finished she had only a handful of swabs and two bags of trace to show for it. "This place is clean," she said. "I'm not finding anything."

Mac frowned and left the body to search the warehouse for anything Charlie might have missed. The door handles were devoid of prints, the grey concrete floors lacked even a thin layer of dust.

"Someone cleaned up," Charlie said, giving voice to Mac's thoughts. He looked up from the ground and studied the windows once more and the dust caked over them.

"They missed a spot." Mac nodded to Charlie. "See what you can get from the windows."

* * *

They were finished processing the scene before the medical examiner had the body bagged and loaded up. Charlie and Mac found Flack in the parking lot, waiting for them.

The detective raised his eyebrows incredulously. "Done already?"

"There wasn't a lot to go through," Mac said. "Whoever did this was careful, they took the time to cover their tracks."

"You didn't get anything?"

"Some trace, a hundred dollar bill, and prints," Charlie said. "One set, pulled off the window frame."

"We'll head back to the lab and work with what we have," Mac said. "I want you to run the prints first and work on trace in the meantime."

"Alright," Charlie said. Mac's phone rang, and he glanced down at the number.

"Change of plans, there's another body downtown. Flack can drive you back to the lab, I'll catch up with you later," Mac said. "Prints first," he said again before heading towards his truck.

"Driver," Charlie said, the barest hint of a smirk on her face. She waited for Flack to point out which of the cruisers was his, then followed him to the car. The detective popped the trunk of a silver Crown Victoria so Charlie could put her case inside.

"Driver? I thought you were from Florida. Doesn't everybody from there have a car?"

"Isn't everybody from New York in a hurry?" Charlie climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door, her smile still intact.

Flack muttered something about mouthy new girls as he got into the car. The warehouse was out on the fringes of the city, in the center of a flat lot surrounded by identical flat lots. The roads between the lots were beaten down pathways strewn with loose gravel that crunched under the tires. On either side of the street the old, rusted warehouses sat hunched back on their lots. Their grime streaked windows looked like gaping mouths.

"So where are you from, originally?" Flack asked.

"Here, actually."

"Really?"

"Born in Manhattan, raised in Florida," Charlie said.

"What part of Manhattan?"

"Upper west side."

Flack gave an appreciative whistle. "Are you old money, Charlie?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "My dad was." They bumped their way over a pothole before Flack turned the car onto a two lane road that led downtown. They could see the city slowly taking shape against the sky as they drove toward it.

"Where you from, Flack?"

"Queens," he said. "Born and raised."

"City boy," Charlie said. They could see it now, the blue on blue silhouette of her father's city. "I bet you'd be lost without those buildings."

* * *

**Please drop me a review and let me know how you like it so far. I welcome all questions, comments, and true stories of adventure!**


	3. Chapter 3

There was a girl at Adam's table. He stopped when he saw her, pausing just outside the print lab to do a double take. Fair skin, brown hair. High cheekbones and the hint of curves from beneath the crisp white lab coat. She was pretty, not gorgeous, but pretty. Single too, maybe. Adam summoned his courage, straightened his own coat and swept into the print lab.

"Hi," he said. "You must be the new girl?"

"Yeah," Charlie said. She glanced up from the worktable, the word _hipster _popping into her head when looked at Adam. "This must be your station."

"Yeah—no, well yes." The woman's eyes were strange, a cool shade of blue so washed out they looked grey. "Adam Ross," he said as he offered his hand.

Charlie peeled off a glove and shook it. "Charlie. Sorry about this, I just needed to run some prints."

"No, it's alright. I mean my lab is your lab, right," Adam laughed a little, and Charlie rewarded him with a small smile.

"Thanks, I appreciate that." Charlie peeled off her second glove and picked up the copy of the print she'd pulled off the window frame. "Would you mind showing me how your lab goes about running prints?"

"Yeah, sure, of course." Adam signed in on the computer at the end of the table and pulled up the print database. Charlie placed the print in the computer's scanner while Adam turned the machine on. He started the scan, and Charlie pulled up a stool to sit next to Adam while the computer searched for a match.

"So where are you—?"

"Florida. You?"

Adam looked at Charlie in surprise, and she cut him off when he opened his mouth to ask another question.

"I'm a Jedi." She smiled again, her eyes flicking from the screen to Adam and back again.

"Well, I'm honored," Adam said. He tried not to stare at Charlie. The woman was almost as strange as her eyes, and he couldn't help but like her for it.

"How about you?" Charlie asked.

"Oh, I'm from Phoenix."

"No I meant are you a—"

"Jedi," Mac said from behind them. Adam turned with a start, but Charlie appeared unruffled. On the desk, the computer beeped and chimed.

"Oh hey boss, we were just running the prints from the scene," Adam said, his face turning red.

"Any luck yet?" Mac asked.

"Looks like it," Charlie said. Adam clicked on the profile of the matched prints, and a criminal record popped up on the screen.

Mac nodded at Charlie, "Let's pay him a visit."

"Nice meeting you," she said to Adam as she pulled off the lab coat and followed Mac towards the elevators.

Adam called after her. "May the force—"

"And with you," Charlie said.

* * *

**Please drop me a review and let me know how you like it so far. I welcome all questions, comments, and true stories of adventure!**


	4. Chapter 4

They gave Flack a call and picked the detective up at the precinct. "He doesn't have much of a record, but I know the guy," Flack said from the passenger seat of the Avalanche.

"What's he into?" Charlie asked.

"Drugs. He was picked up when he was seventeen for possession," Flack explained. "He never served hard time, the judge let him off easy."

Charlie kept an image of the man's mugshot in her mind as Mac drove them through the city. She stared out the window, scanning the faces of people as they passed them. She half expected to see Russell Fletcher on any corner, leaning on a magazine stand or heading down into the subway. "Repeat offender?"

Flack shook his head. "No, but he's dirty. Name comes up every so often in other investigations. He's brushed elbows with a number of gangs in the area, but we've never been able to connect him to any crimes. We've never even been able to get enough on him to bring him in for questioning."

"You think he's good for this?" Charlie asked, eyeing a hot dog vendor.

"Anyone's good for murder," Mac pointed out. He slowed the car and pulled up alongside a vacant shop. The doors were flung wide and propped open with bricks. A couple of men were pulling boxes out of a moving truck parked out front.

"There's our boy," Flack said as he nodded to one of the men. He was dressed in jeans and a loose flannel shirt. The sleeves were rolled to his elbows, and a couple inches of dirty grey t-shirt poked out of the collar. He looked up from under the visor of a frayed ball cap when they pulled up. He tipped a nod at Flack, then at the nearest street corner.

"Come on, we'll wait for him there," Flack said. He climbed out of the Avalanche and started heading towards the end of the street.

"When did you start letting suspects call the shots?" Mac asked.

"We've got an understanding," Flask said.

"What if he runs for it?" Charlie glanced back over her shoulder. Russell Fletcher was talking to one of his coworkers. The man laughed and clapped Russell on the back. Charlie thought she saw him flinch before he turned and started heading towards them.

"He won't," Flack said. "If he runs we can arrest and charge him. He's too smart to let that happen. He'll talk to us, just give him a second."

They turned the corner and stood on the sidewalk of a street that dead ended into a narrow lot. Not a minute later Russell turned the corner as well, a pair of work gloves in one hand.

"Afternoon," he said, and flashed a cordial smile. "To what momentous occasion do I owe a visit from not one but two detectives and…" Russell raised his eyebrows at Charlie. "Flack's girlfriend?"

"Detective Parker," Flack corrected.

Russell let out a low whistle. "Three detectives. Hot damn, what'd I do?" The convict shoved his gloves into a back pocket and moved to lean against the wall of the nearest building. He popped his hat off and ran a hand through his dirty brown hair. When he replaced the hat he put in on the back of his head and left the visor tipped up so it was easy to see his face.

Charlie decided that Russell Fletcher's mugshot didn't do the man justice. He looked every inch of his twenty four years, maybe more. There was sweat sliding down one temple and a healthy helping of stubble covering his face. The man had a certain appeal, an easygoing manner that his photo didn't capture.

"Russ Fletcher," he said, putting his hands behind his back. "The boys in blue here call me Fletch, but you can call me whatever you want."

"How about guilty?" Charlie said. She pulled the photo of the victim out of her coat and held it out for Russell. He had no trouble looking at the picture of the dead man. "Did you flirt with him too before you shot him?"

"Well I'm not gay," Fletch said.

"I don't know Fletch, your hands looked pretty small and girly to me," Flack said.

"I compensate with a big—" His eyes flicked to Charlie. "Personality. The ladies love it."

"Enough. How do you know him?" Mac asked.

"I don't." Fletch's face never changed, the easygoing manner never wavering.

"You sure about that?" Charlie pulled out another photo, this one of the window from the warehouse. A set of prints was outlined on the window frame in white fingerprint dust. "We found these in the warehouse where this man was shot and killed, courtesy of your little hands."

"I didn't kill him, I don't even know him," Fletch straightened a little, but his hands stayed out of sight behind his back.

"Why were you at the warehouse?" Flack asked.

"Worked a job there a week ago for the company that owns the place. We moved a couple of crates upstate."

"So you knew about the place," Mac said. "Maybe you decided to use it to make a deal, maybe peddled some drugs and shot our vic when the deal went south."

Fletch tipped his head back against the wall and rested it there. "Oh man, you've got me. Tell me what I did after I shot him."

"Why don't you tell us?"

"I don't know Taylor, sounds like you know me better than I know myself."

"We have evidence and your record, that puts—"

"Me at the scene with a reason to be there. Doesn't put the gun in my hand or give me the motive you need. You can check with my boss, I was there for work. Are we done here?"

"Why the hurry?" Flack asked.

"Standing around talking to cops isn't good for my image," Fletch said.

"Your drug dealing image?"

Fletch's manner cooled a little. "Is there anything else? I've got to get back to work."

Mac's anger was palpable, and Flack had crossed his arms over his chest. Charlie was still, her eyes on Russell. "I hope you didn't kill this guy, Fletch," Flack said to him.

Fletcher stood and pulled his gloves from his pocket. "Yeah, I hope I didn't either. You know where to find me." The convict turned and headed back around the corner, leaving the detectives to mull over what he'd said.

* * *

"What are you thinking?" Flack asked on the way back to the lab. He directed his question to no one in particular.

"He's hiding something," Mac said. "He was in that warehouse."

"I'll check with his manager, see if he worked at the warehouse."

"Have you questioned him before?" Charlie asked after a while.

"Lots of times," Flack said.

"Did anything seem different this time around?"

Flack rubbed at his chin, considering the question. "Nothing really. He isn't usually in such a hurry to cut things short."

"I don't think he did it," Charlie said. "It didn't bother him to look at the photo, but it bothered him when you mentioned the drugs. I think he was in on it, but I don't think he did it."

"How do you think he's involved then?" Flack asked.

"He could be a shot caller. He's not a user, he didn't have any needle marks and looked healthy. That makes me think he's not buying the drugs, but it doesn't mean he's not selling them," Charlie said.

"Most dealers use their own product," Flack pointed out.

"This guy isn't average, Flack," Mac said. "Not if he's as involved in the drug scene as you believe him to be. He's only been picked up once since he was seventeen, and everything we have on him now is circumstantial if he's telling the truth about being in the warehouse."

"He might not have pulled the trigger, but he could've easily had someone else do it for him," Charlie said.

"I'll put a tail on him too," Flack said. "Have a guy follow him and see who he spends his time with outside of work."

Mac dropped Flack at the precinct and parked the Avalanche on the first floor of a parking garage. The older detective led the way towards the elevator, but Charlie's steps slowed.

"Uh, Mac, do you mind if we take the stairs?"

He turned to look at Charlie over one shoulder. "You don't like elevators?"

"Something like that," Charlie said.

"It's thirty floors," Mac pointed out.

Charlie gave him a smile, "I'll meet you up there."

Mac's eyes followed Charlie's slim figure as she headed for the stairs, hands tucked down into her coat pockets. He waited for the elevator, wondering what possessed someone to walk up thirty flights of stairs.

* * *

**As always, all questions, comments, and true stories of adventure are greatly appreciated. Drop me a couple lines, and let me know what you think of the characters so far. :)**


	5. Chapter 5

Charlie had no intention of walking up thirty-four flights of stairs, she'd just wanted a moment alone. The glare of the fluorescent lights was harsh, the air stuffy and hot. She jogged up a couple flights of stairs for good measure, then sat down for a minute to catch her breath. She pulled out her phone and unlocked it. There were two texts and a missed call. Charlie ignored them, dialed her sister's number and put the phone to her ear. She held it there with her shoulder and put her hands out in front of her, palms down.

Emma picked up on the second ring, her voice bright and anxious. The first few questions were normal, and Charlie told her sister how her day was going so far and what the weather was like while she examined her hands. There was a pause, and then Emma finally asked Charlie the loaded question.

"Are you, you know—okay?"

Charlie rubbed the knuckles of one hand, curled and uncurled her fingers. There was no twinge of pain, no bone deep throbbing. "So far, so good."

* * *

"Detective Parker?" A technician with a clipboard balanced on her hip was waiting for Charlie on the thirty fourth floor.

"Yeah?"

"Detective Taylor wanted me to let you know there's evidence waiting for you over in processing."

Charlie asked the technician where processing was, then thanked her and headed off into the maze of the lab. There was a brown evidence bag waiting for her on one of the clean white tables. Charlie donned a lab coat and a set of gloves. She broke the red seal on the bag and looked inside at a clean white jogging suit.

"It belongs to the witness," Mac said from the doorway. He removed his coat in exchange for one that matched Charlie's, then joined her at the table. Charlie pushed the box of gloves to him and started pulling things from the bag. They split the clothes, and Charlie worked on one side of the table while Mac worked on the other.

"How was the walk?" Mac asked.

"I gave up, about eight floors up. Took the elevator the rest of the way," Charlie admitted. It wasn't necessarily a lie. Charlie had left the stairwell as soon she'd hung up with Emma.

"They don't make buildings like this in Florida, do they?" Mac said. He'd already laid out the sport's jacket and started examining one sleeve.

"No," Charlie said. "They definitely don't. I don't know how you guys stand it. This whole city is so…"

"Tall?" Mac suggested.

Charlie shook her head. "I was thinking claustrophobic." She got to work on the witness's pants, looking for any stains or other trace that might be stuck to the material.

Mac only smiled. "You'll get used to it."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Charlie said. They settled into a comfortable silence and finished at roughly the same time. There were a couple of foreign fibers on the jogging suit and one small stain on the pants. They swabbed each sleeve of the jacket for gunshot residue, but both came back negative.

"So he didn't fire a gun," Mac said. "The witness isn't our shooter."

"It still doesn't explain why he lied about finding the vic."

"Or," Mac looked at the suit laid out on the light table. "What he was doing near those lots at all. This suit is clean. If he'd been jogging in it as he said he was the cuffs of the pants would have dirt or dust on them."

"It's just like the warehouse," Charlie said. "Somebody cleaned up the warehouse, somebody cleaned up the witness. But no gunshot residue, he didn't fire the gun."

"What are you thinking?" Mac asked. Charlie pulled a stool over and sat down, putting her feet up on the rungs. Mac's question didn't feel like a question, it felt like a test.

"Fletch is our mastermind, right? He has knowledge of the warehouse from his day job and decides to use it to set up some kind of drug deal. We know he has ties to that world, so it fits." Charlie flicked a glance at Mac, but his dark eyes were unreadable.

"It was premeditated," Charlie continued. Mac's brows rose at this. "Fletch is dealing to the vic, so the witness was either working with or for Fletch, or he was a friend of the vic. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say he probably wasn't a friend of the vic."

"Why not?"

"He's not dead. Say Fletch is our shooter. He wouldn't shoot our vic and not the witness if they were together. He'd have shot them both."

"What if the witness was another buyer?"

Charlie shook her head. "Unlikely. What motive would another junkie have for reporting the murder of a fellow junkie? Not to mention the fact that the witness's clothes are incredibly clean, suggesting a cover up or change of clothes. Which, supports the theory that the whole thing was premeditated. We only found drugs on the victim and one lone hundred dollar bill. Doesn't seem like a sale so much as a collection. The vic was paying Fletch for a sale that had already gone down. Fletch must've known that the vic wouldn't be able to pay it all. Brings a gun, puts our vic down."

Mac tipped his chin up appraisingly, and Charlie began to think she was off the hook. "What about the witness? Why was he there if he wasn't buying drugs?"

"He could have been Fletcher's muscle," Charlie said. "In case things went wrong. Fletcher brings the witness along as back up to make sure our vic doesn't pull a gun of his own and try to off Fletcher. When it's done, Fletcher goes to his day job, has the witness clean it all up."

"Not bad," Mac said after a moment. "Get to work on the stain and the foreign fibers, I'll page you down to autopsy when Sid is ready for us." Mac tore off his gloves and started taking his coat off.

"Hey Mac," Charlie said as he began to walk away.

"Yes?"

"Did I pass?"

Mac smiled, "So far, so good."

* * *

**Reviews, questions, compliments, and true stories of adventure are all welcome and appreciated. Please let me know how you like it so far, how you feel about the characters, and whether or not you find the current case interesting. :)**


	6. Chapter 6

"I hate fibers," Charlie said out loud. She was alone, balanced on a stool and hunched over a microscope. Charlie's neck hurt from peering into the lens for so long, but she still only knew two things about the limpid grey material she'd been studying for the past hour. First: the fiber was different from the other one she and Mac had pulled off the witness's clothing. Second: the first thing was important. She'd already sampled each fiber, and was waiting for the computer to finish searching the database for the composition of each type.

"Two different materials," Charlie said. "One explanation." As if on cue, the computer dinged. Charlie leaned over to view the results, a semi-triumphant smile spreading across her face. She printed them, stuffed the pages into a manila folder and went in search of Mac.

* * *

"Polymer," Mac said from behind his desk. He was leaning back in his chair, eyeing the results Charlie had brought him with a thoughtful expression. "A mixture of polyester and nylon. Commonly used in upholstery." He flipped to the next page. "And polyurethane. Possibly some sort of foam or cushion."

Charlie had been taking in the office while Mac talked, eyeing the trophies and framed photos that adorned the desk and shelves. It was inevitable that Mac had checked into Charlie's background before hiring her. What Mac probably didn't realize was that Charlie had been equally as curious about her employer. She'd done her own sort of background check, and had drudged up a decent amount of information about Detective Mac Taylor. Of course, there was nothing she'd found online that was as revealing as the arrangement of Mac's office. The desk was tidy, with every paper in a file and every file in a pile. The photos on the walls and shelves were of men in uniforms, of men rappelling from helicopters into the desert, of men against backdrops of the American flag. _He loves this country, _Charlie thought, then amended herself. _It's more than that. He _believes_ in this country._

"Charlie?"

"Sorry," she said. "What was it you were saying?"

"Our witness had contact with some sort of furniture, possibly something inside the warehouse that we may have missed," Mac said.

"I'll go over the crime scene photos again," Charlie offered. "Look for something that they could have come off of."

Mac stood and grabbed his coat. "We'll go down to autopsy first. I think it's time you met Sid."

* * *

Sid Hammerback was, physically, an unremarkable man. He was bent over the body of their vic, tediously examining the man's fingertips. He barely glanced up from his work as Mac and Charlie approached.

"Morning, Sid."

"Good morning, Mac. I was just wrapping up the autopsy on your vic and I found—" Sid looked up, his glasses balanced precariously on the end of his nose. "Oh, hi there," he said to Charlie. "You must be a new detective. I was wondering when I'd finally get to meet one of you."

Mac gave the medical examiner a good natured smile before introducing Charlie to him. Sid stuck out a hand for Charlie to shake, then retracted the gloved limb with an apologetic smile.

"Raincheck," Charlie said, and Sid nodded his assent.

"It's good to meet you, all the same," Sid said. "You're from Florida is it? And there's also another rumor going around that you are your sister are—"

"Sid," Mac said.

"Right, right, the victim," Sid said. The sudden change in topic didn't seem to faze the medical examiner in the least. "Still a John Doe at the moment, but I've got his prints running. Hopefully we'll be able to turn up something in the criminal database, as the victim does in fact appear to have been a user."

"Been?" Mac raised his eyebrows at Sid.

"Well yes," Sid said. He pulled the sheet up a couple of inches, exposing the victim's knees. "There are no track marks on his arms or around his elbows, but I did find these." Sid indicated a number of small, circular shaped marks on the victim's skin that looked like old bruises.

"Indicative of a user," Mac said. "He likely wanted to keep his drug abuse from being known to the people around him. Choosing the back of the knees as the injection point makes it harder to spot the track marks."

Sid nodded a couple more times. "Precisely. The track marks are old. If I had to guess, I'd say our victim last shot up several months ago. However, his tox screen did reveal traces of MDMA in his system."

"Ecstasy," Charlie said. "So he gets off cocaine and onto ecstasy?"

"Apparently so," Sid said. Charlie filed the fact away for further consideration. It didn't make sense that a drug user would take a step back, abandoning a hard core drug for a lesser one. Typically the progression was reversed, and users graduated from substances like ecstasy to more addicting ones, like cocaine and heroin.

"Anything else for us, Sid?" Mac asked.

Sid sighed, "The rest is rather clean cut. The gunshot wound severed the aorta, resulting in the victim's death." Sid passed Mac a sealed container that held a deformed bullet. "Appears to be a 9mm, but I was hesitant to confirm the caliber without ballistics." Mac studied the lump of metal as Sid continued. "My final remarks have to do with the subdermal bruising of his upper body. It likely occurred within a day or two of the victim's death."

"Evidence of defensive wounds?" Mac asked.

Sid nodded, "Though they aren't what you would typically expect from a fist fight. The marks are around the upper arms and shoulder area. It's as though the victim was being held or restrained by two or more individuals while a third awarded our vic with the aforementioned bruises. It's also worth noting that although the victim was beat, no bones were broken, and no damage was done to his face or other extremities."

Charlie made mental notes of everything Sid said and struggled to refrain from making any conclusions about the case just yet. Still, she couldn't help but recall the way that Fletcher had hid his hands behind his back when they'd talked to him that morning. Perhaps he hadn't wanted the detectives to see the incriminating bruises on his hands that would be there if he'd beaten the vic. Charlie hazarded a glance at Mac and wondered if he was thinking the same thing.

"The final thing is the victim's hands," Sid said. "They appear fairly calloused. I'd say he was involved in some sort of work that likely required extensive use of his hands. He may have been a contractor, construction worker, or—"

A computer at a desk behind Sid dinged once, and Sid pulled off his gloves and resettled his glasses before he checked the machine. "Ah, and here he is. Aaron Batey. Previously arrested and convicted of possession of cocaine. His parole officer has him listed as being employed under the Worthen Moving Company." Sid's eyes lit up, "Moving company, of course. I wasn't far off—"

"Thank you for this, Sid," Mac said, cutting the medical examiner off again. "Let us know if you find anything else."

"Of course," Sid said. Mac turned and began to head for the elevator. Charlie paused a moment to offer Sid her hand now that he'd removed his gloves.

"Nice meeting you, Dr. Hammerback," Charlie said.

"Please, call me Sid," the man said, "and it's no problem at all. If you have any questions, you know where to find me."

Charlie thanked him again before heading off after Mac. She had to walk briskly through the morgue to catch up to him. He was waiting by the elevator, phone pressed to one ear. Charlie hung back a step or two, not wanting to intrude on his conversation. She tucked her hands down into the pockets of her coat and thought once more about the case and all the information they had. Her mind immediately circulated back to Fletcher.

"That was Flack," Mac said when he hung up the phone. They stepped into the elevator together. "Russell Fletcher is employed by—"

"The Worthen Moving Company," Charlie finished.

"Fletcher lied about having never met our vic before," Mac said. "Flack's on the way to pick him up." Mac hit the button for the crime lab's floor.

"I change my mind," Charlie said as the doors shut. "Forget the witness, my money's on Fletch."

* * *

**Alrighty, so there we are, Chapter 6! Please let me know if you're still reading and how you're liking it so far. Any questions, comments, or true stories of adventure are welcome. :)**


	7. Chapter 7

"He came willingly," Flack told Mac and Charlie after the three caught up with one another at the precinct. They were standing in a viewing room looking in on Russell Fletcher. He was sitting alone at a silver table, waiting to be interrogated. The man was, by all appearances, at ease with his surroundings. He had his chair leaned back, tipped up on two legs. His hands were tucked—quite conveniently, Charlie thought—into the pockets of his work jeans.

"I picked him up at the Worthen Company's warehouse just as he was leaving work," Flack said.

"He didn't argue?" Mac asked.

Flack shook his head. "We've never been able to get a warrant on Fletch—this is the first time he's ever even been in our custody, and he pretty much volunteered for it."

"How bizarre," Charlie said.

"Or maybe lucky," Flack said. "The judge denied my request for an arrest warrant. Without an obvious motive, we need viable proof that Fletch was in the warehouse for a reason other than work."

"Did you subpoena his work records and verify that he worked the job at that exact warehouse?" Mac asked.

"They're being sent over now," Flack replied.

Mac slapped the manila folder he had in his hand against one thigh. "He's here by choice, not force. He can leave at any time, so we shouldn't press him too hard unless we have to."

"If it's alright with you," Charlie said, pulling her eyes away from Fletcher to look at Mac. "I'd like to watch, at least for the first few minutes."

Mac nodded wordlessly to Flack, and the two left the room. A moment later, Fletcher turned his head as the door to his room opened to emit the two detectives. Charlie shifted her weight from one leg to the other, her eyes fixed on Fletcher.

"Let's start with your alibi," Mac said. He dropped the file onto the table and sat down across from Fletcher. Flack leaned against the wall next to the door, arms crossed over his chest. Fletcher lowered his chair to all four legs.

"Where were you this morning between the hours of four and nine?" Mac asked.

"I went in to work at seven," Fletcher said.

"Where were you before then?" Mac asked.

"Sleeping," Fletcher tipped a nod at Flack. "His sister can verify."

"Cute," Flack said.

"She sure is," Fletcher said, but there was no menace in it. Fletcher talked to Flack the way one brother would to another.

Mac pulled a photo of the victim out of the manila folder and put it in front of Fletcher. This one was different from the one Charlie had shown him earlier. It had been taken after the autopsy, and the large 'Y' shape that Sid had carved into the man was clearly visible in the photo. "How did you know him?"

Fletcher picked up the photo and studied it for minute, his eyes unreadable. He started shaking his head long before he spoke. "I didn't."

"Funny," Flack said. "Since the two of you worked together."

"I've never worked a shift with him," Fletcher put the photo back onto the table. "I don't know him, didn't know him."

"You never ran into him at the Worthen headquarters, never shared a truck with him?" Mac asked.

Fletcher shook his head. "Never met him. Never shared a subway car with him, never stood beside him to piss in a urinal."

Charlie's gaze had been on Fletcher's hands since he removed them from his pockets. He had held the photo with his right hand, and although Charlie could see the back of it she couldn't make out any distinct bruising from where she was standing.

"Do you really think we're going to buy that?" Flack asked.

"You don't have to buy it," Fletcher said. "I don't have to sell it either if you'd rather me go home to your mother."

"Tell us about your job," Mac said before Flack could reply. "How did your prints end up on the window frame of the warehouse?"

"We moved mostly crates out of that place, maybe two hundred pounds apiece. We took a lot of breaks, maybe I leaned against the window during one of them."

"Maybe?" Flack asked.

"You're right, maybe I put them there after I got rid of the gun I used to kill a guy I don't even know," Fletcher said. He was starting to lose his patience, his sarcasm thickening with every word. "I didn't come here to parry murder accusations or confess. I said I'd answer your questions. Why don't you start asking some useful ones?"

"Do you know a man named Brant Miller?" Mac asked. Charlie recognized the name as belonging to the witness that had reported the victim's body to the police. She thought immediately of the too-clean jogging suit and the theory she and Mac had put together. Fletcher and Miller were likely in league with one another. Fletcher as the murderer, Miller as his accomplice.

"Brant Miller?" Fletcher echoed the name. "Does he work for Worthen too?"

"No," Mac said.

Fletcher shrugged. "I don't know him."

Mac collected the photo and slipped it back into the file. Flack unfolded his arms and moved to rest his weight on the edge of the table. "Don't paint yourself into a corner, Fletch. If there is anything helpful that you can tell us, you need to tell us now before this goes too far."

"I've told you everything I know," Fletcher wouldn't meet Flack's eyes.

"You've never seen the victim, never heard of Brant Miller," Mac said. "What about drugs? Is there anyone at Worthen that you've heard of who uses? Who might be dealing?"

"No," Fletcher shook his head. "Not that I know of."

"No one at all?" Flack asked.

"Look I'm sure there is, but I don't know Worthen inside and out. I'm just a guy who gets paid to move some boxes. I go to work every day at the same time and I work on the same truck with the same five guys, and they're clean."

"You have a record, possession of—" Mac began.

Fletcher abruptly got to his feet, pushing his chair back with a loud scraping noise. Flack followed suit, and the two stood face to face in what now seemed like a very crowded room. "Sit down," Flack said, "We're not done."

"The hell we are," Fletcher said. "You can't hold me here, you don't have anything on me."

"Give us something, Fletch. You came down here because you know something. Tell us what it is," Flack said. "Do you have any idea who killed him?"

"Christ," Fletcher said, "for the last time, I didn't even know him."

Now Mac stood as well, and Fletcher suddenly looked a lot less like a guy about to come to blows and more like someone who'd been backed into a corner.

"I don't believe you," Mac said. "You have a hand in this some way or another, and when we find out what it is we're going to come for you Fletcher. You're not going to slip through the cracks again. We're putting you away for this."

"Right, tenth times the charm," Fletcher said before he turned on his heel and headed for the door. Charlie ducked out of the viewing room as quickly as she could and started after Fletcher, dodging desks and detectives. He was moving fast, and was already heading up the street when Charlie reached the front steps of the precinct.

"Hey!" She called, but the street and the crowd swallowed Charlie's voice and he didn't stop. Charlie took off after him, only shouting again when she was within arm's length of Fletcher's back. "Fletch!"

He turned so quickly that Charlie nearly plowed into him. Fletcher took a step back from her as if she would burn him if they touched. "Parker?" He looked genuinely surprised to see her, but the emotion wasn't quite strong enough to wipe the frustration from his face. "What do you want?"

"A word," Charlie said.

"The interrogation's over," Fletcher said, and he turned and started walking again. Charlie bulled forward and put herself squarely in front of him. He towered over her, and not a hint of the easy going manner he'd assumed that morning remained. He was practically bristling, his mouth set into a hard line.

"I've got somewhere to be," Fletcher said, but he made no move to go around Charlie.

"Two questions," Charlie said. "Off the record."

"Who are you anyway?" Fletcher asked, and Charlie frowned.

"What? I'm Parker—you just said so."

"Taylor was obviously the bad cop, Flack some contorted version of a good cop. So who're you?"

Charlie just shrugged, unsure of how to answer. Fletcher made as if to walk around her, and Charlie moved to block him. "What do you think," Charlie snapped. She couldn't care less about his answer, she just wanted to keep Fletcher from storming off.

"I was hoping for naughty cop, but you're still wearing your clothes so that can't be it," Fletcher said. "Now what do you want?"

Someone bumped into Charlie from behind, and she took an involuntary step closer to Fletcher. He didn't back up, just continued to glare down at Charlie.

"Why did you do this?" Charlie said.

"Why did I come down here?" Fletcher looked annoyed. "Because your friends asked me real nicely."

"Bullshit," Charlie said, her own temper flaring. "You hated every second you spent in that room. Why did you come here?"

"They think I did it," Fletcher shot back. "I'm just trying to clear my name."

"You never did this before," Charlie said. "This is the first time you've ever—"

"I've never been in official police custody," Fletcher corrected. "But I've never refused to talk." Charlie remembered that morning when they'd questioned Fletcher, the way he'd met them on the corner to answer their preliminary questions.

Another person—someone quite larger than the first—bumped into Charlie. Fletcher grabbed her arm to steady her before tossing a glare over his shoulder.

"Watch where you're going asshole!" Fletcher called after the man. Charlie's eyes shot immediately to his hand on her arm, to the relatively new looking bruises across the top of his knuckles.

Fletcher followed Charlie's line of sight and quickly pocketed his hand. There was a multitude of emotion in his eyes now—alarm among them. "I've had enough," he said before brushing past Charlie.

"One more," she called after him.

He stopped again, turning only half way around to look at Charlie. She walked to meet him, pitching her voice against the noise in the street. "What did you mean this morning, when you said you hoped you didn't kill him either?"

"What?" Fletcher was perplexed.

"Flack said he hoped you didn't kill him, and you said you hoped you didn't either," Charlie said. "What did you mean?"

For a moment Fletcher just stared, and Charlie could see the gears behind the green eyes turning. "Cops," Fletcher said after what felt to Charlie like an eternity, "aren't the only ones looking for the person responsible."

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**Reviews are greatly appreciated! Let me know how you guys like the characters, especially Charlie and Fletcher. Thoughts on whether or not he did it?**


	8. Chapter 8

Charlie watched Fletcher disappear into the crowd, his words still ringing in her head. _Cops aren't the only ones looking. _Another person jostled Charlie, and she resisted the urge to shout at someone. Just what the hell was the deal with New Yorkers, why couldn't they walk around her? She made a beeline for the precinct, taking the steps two at a time. Charlie found Mac and Flack waiting for her inside the observation room where she'd been a moment before.

"Where'd you go?" Flack asked when she slipped inside. Mac stood in front of the window, his eyes fixed on the empty chair where Fletcher had been.

"Restroom," Charlie said without thinking. Fletcher's words were still bouncing around in her head. "How do you guys feel about Fletcher?"

"He's good for it," Mac said. He still had the manila folder that contained the photos in his hands. "We just have to find the evidence to prove it."

"The work records are on the way," Flack said. "If it turns out that Fletch was never scheduled to work a job at the warehouse it would prove he was there for something other than work. We could get a warrant, maybe find the gun at his place."

"Work records aren't going to be enough for a warrant," Mac pointed out.

"There were bruises," Charlie said. She felt weight of their gazes shift to her. "Across the top of his left hand and knuckles."

"He could've got them from beating the witness," Flack said.

Mac shook his head. "Work records and bruises are enough for a warrant but not a conviction."

"They are if we find the gun," Flack said.

They waited in silence while Mac mulled this over. Charlie couldn't take her eyes off the folder in his hands, couldn't erase from her mind the image of the body on the cold table and the splotchy bruises that had covered the chest. She remembered Fletcher, not as he'd been that morning but as he'd been on the street just moments before, bristling with anger. It was easy, too easy, to imagine the hand he'd put on her arm clenching into a fist.

"Every minute we don't have the gun is another minute Fletcher might use to get rid of it," Mac said. "Take the records straight to a judge when you get them, Flack. We need the gun, and we need the warrant to get it."

* * *

Mac gave Charlie the evidence bag containing the bullet that had killed Aaron Batey and sent her to ballistics as soon as they were back in the lab. She opened the evidence bag and emptied the petri dish of fragments onto the clean white table. After donning a pair of gloves, Charlie emptied the contents of the petri dish too. She stared hard then at the handful of metal pieces in front of her, as if willing them to reassemble themselves. At that moment Charlie would have done anything to have been able to trade jobs with Flack, who was busy digging up any and all dirt he could on Fletcher.

It was all just busywork meant to keep them occupied until the warrant came through, but Charlie would've still preferred Flack's assignment over her own. She couldn't get Fletcher's face out of her mind. It was like an unseen force kept pushing him there to the forefront of her thoughts. Charlie kept imagining him at the warehouse, the scene of the crime. Only he wasn't the shooter in Charlie's recreation, he was the victim, and he lay on the dust free floor with a hole in his chest and a pool of blood oozing out from under him. _Cops aren't the only ones looking. _

She tried to clear her mind and focus on her work. She used a 3D scan gun and started imaging the pieces of the bullet one by one. When that was done she set the program to analyzing them and searching for how they fit together. The greatest advantage of technology, Charlie thought to herself as she pulled off her gloves, was the ability to multitask. She grabbed a copy of the case file she'd brought with her and began to leaf through the pages while the computer did her job for her.

Charlie went through the crime scene photos first, going over the facts for the umpteenth time. She reexamined the photos one by one and read the witness account. She kept turning the pages, and then there he was, staring up at her from the confines of his grayscale mugshot. Fletcher's rap sheet had been added to the file, and there were a couple of lines beneath the photo detailing Fletcher's arrest. There was only one, dated almost eight years earlier when Fletcher had been seventeen. The file listed the bare minimum about the arrest, stating only that Fletcher had been convicted of possession of an illegal substance with intent to sell. Although a non-violent offense, Charlie had seen criminals do anywhere from one to ten years for the same charge. Fletcher had received six years of probation for his conviction, which was an arguably light sentence. Of course, he had technically been a minor at the time. Charlie turned the page, looking for more information. There was nothing else on the front or back of the page except for the one arrest, no other evidence of Fletcher's many brushes with the law.

Charlie put the file aside and minimized the window on the computer. She pulled up a new webpage and opened Fletcher's file in the criminal database. His photo—with the exception of color—was identical to the one printed on the rap sheet. There were, however, a number of notes that had been added to Fletcher's file that hadn't been in the case file. Charlie scrolled down through the list that'd been made by detectives who'd come across Fletcher in their investigations. There were at least a dozen cases that dealt with drug trafficking, each coupled with notes detailing Fletcher's suspected involvement in each one. He'd been marked as a possible junkie in some, a dealer or supplier in others. There had never been anything in any case to implement Fletcher, no evidence to close the cuffs around his wrists or to warrant having the information permanently added to his rap sheet. Fletcher was incredibly clean, Charlie decided. Dirty, but clean. She also noted that he'd never had any suspected involvement in any violent offenses. No assaults, not even a single harassment case was mentioned.

"What've you found so far?" Mac asked from the doorway.

Charlie quickly closed the tab, and found that the computer had finished reconstructing the bullet. "Caliber is a .22, but the bullet is too damaged to run a search. We'll find a hundred matches in the database with what we have."

"We'll have to go off the caliber then," Mac said.

"The warrant came through?" Charlie's heart did a neat little flip flop in her chest. She'd forgotten how nerve wracking a case could be. The warrant was a gamble, but if it came through it could only mean good news.

"Fletcher was telling the truth about working the job at the warehouse," Mac said. "The records proved that."

"Then why did the judge give us the warrant if he was telling the truth?" Charlie asked.

"He didn't lie about the job, he lied about not knowing the victim," Mac explained. "He worked the warehouse job with Aaron Batey."

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**Been a little longer than usual since I updated. As always any questions, comments, true stories of adventure appreciated, so don't forget to drop me a line! =)**


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